DHB under fire over death of depressed mother of six

NZHerald 16 July 2012 A Hawkes Bay man says his repeated calls for help for the depressed mother of his six young children were ignored and she did not get the psychiatric care needed to save her life. Ann-Maree Hodges, 39, died a fortnight ago. There were no suspicious circumstances. The Hawkes Bay District Health Board defends the level of care provided to Ms Hodges, but Trevor Takerei, her partner of 17 years and father of their six children aged from 18 months to 13, said he tried repeatedly to get help for her. “I have been singing out to mental health services since October last year, right up until the week before her death,” he said. “In October last year, she overdosed on pills and they had her in the unit, but they let her out too early. “I asked the mental health services if they would take her, and they said she wasn’t in a serious enough state of mind to be admitted as a patient. “They sent her to Women’s Refuge to monitor her taking her meds and they let her out in four days. “That’s a place for domestic violence, not psychiatric patients. They kept saying, ‘We have assessed her, we have assessed her. She’s not going to harm herself’.”http://m.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10819747